AOC is a practice of architects, urbanists and interpreters, established in 2003 by Tom Coward, Daisy Froud, Vincent Lacovara and Geoff Shearcroft. We embrace challenging projects and encourage clients to be demanding, generating open, honest, generous proposals in response. Interested by the ways in which forces and factors besides architects shape places, we are committed to delivering projects that fully engage with and respond to the context - social, environmental and political - in which they are set. We approach projects through rigorous dialogue and research, enjoying and exploring the participation of others at every stage - while building the brief, during construction, and throughout occupation - believing that a broader conversation creates a richer and more bespoke end product. Our architecture is both robustly pragmatic and beautifully imaginative.